Nothing Stays the Same
by JustBecause123
Summary: Ellie and Carver at the end of episode 6, followed by missing scenes from episode 7 and after.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's notes: **This was written very quickly based on the end of episode 6 and the previews for episode 7, so spoilers up to that point. There's more story in my head, but it will all be AU once episode 7 airs, so this may end up being a one-shot. I don't own these characters, etc. Also, this all just came out of my head and hit the page with virtually no editing, so I apologize for any less-than-stellar prose. Thanks for reading! Reviews always appreciated :)

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><p>It was eerie, walking along the same stretch of beach to the same huddle of officers standing at the same spot they had the morning Danny's body was discovered. The sky was darker, though, and so was the mood. When the young boy was found, shock had overcome all other emotion. Jack's death elicited a different response: dread, guilt, anger, shame. But not shock.<p>

Few things had ever shocked Carver anyway, but Ellie was different. She was happy, optimistic, trusting. At least, she used to be. But as she got close enough to see the face of the man lying in the sand between the uniformed policemen, she realized that despite the jumble of conflicting emotions, she was no longer surprised. She was different now. Hardened. Numb. As if losing Danny wasn't enough to bear, gazing at Jack's broken and twisted body she suddenly realized that she had lost something else in the last week. Her innocence. Her faith in her friends, in her town. She'd lost some essential piece of herself, and it upset her profoundly.

While she had stumbled across the sand the morning Danny was found, gasping and sobbing, today she strode forward grimly with a straight face, keeping pace with the grizzled and jaded detective beside her. It was only as that epiphany hit her – as she saw clearly how much she had changed in such a short time – that her breath caught and her legs trembled. She went down on one knee, trying to make it look intentional and hide her face from her boss for a moment until she could compose herself again. It only took a second. She was sure he hadn't noticed.

But he had, of course. Emmett Carver didn't miss much. He had easily suppressed his own feelings of regret; they could wait. For now, he'd focus on the task at hand and blame the damn reporters for ruining an innocent man's life. He had watched Ellie climb out of the car and start across the beach. He saw her square her shoulders and jaw, and felt just a tiny bit proud of how far she had come in their short time working together. But he could also see the storm in her eyes and knew, even before she sank down in the sand, that she wasn't as untouched as she appeared.

Carver gave her a moment to pull it together before stepping forward and kneeling beside her to inspect the body. He'd have to wait for the coroner and crime scene investigators, but he could already tell that unlike Danny, Jack had fallen – likely jumped – from the cliff above. He stole a look at his colleague. Her face was carefully blank, fully focused on the body in front of her.

"Not much we can do here," he said gruffly. "At least not until the coroner shows up. Miller, you head over to his place and see if you can track down next of kin." But Ellie showed no sign of having heard him.

"Miller." Nothing. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook it once before quickly dropping it back to his side. "Miller," he said again, more firmly this time. She turned sharply to face him. "Next of kin. Find them." He jerked his head back toward the parking lot. "Go on. I'll take care of this."

Ellie nodded, swallowed hard, and got to her feet. She wobbled a second, almost imperceptibly. Carver resisted the urge to reach out and steady her, but watched closely as Ellie turned and walked away, never once looking back.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hi! Back again with another installment. This has turned into a series of missing scenes, essentially, and I will add more as time and inspiration allow. This chapter comes after the first, between the end of Episode 6 and the early scenes of Episode 7._

_Thank you for reading! Thanks, too, for the reviews. Please feel free to let me know how I'm doing! _

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Carver sat behind his desk staring at the photo of himself splashed across the front page of the newspaper. He'd read the story twice already, each time losing track of all the half-truths and insinuations packed into the columns.

As he got ready to read through it one last time, a knock sounded at the door. He looked up as Ellie walked into his office, and studied her briefly as she started speaking. The color that had drained from her complexion over the last several days was returning and her voice, though still quiet, held more resolve. His face remained impassive, but he felt just the slightest bit of amusement and appreciation as she parroted his own words back to him.

"They hounded that poor man to death, and now they're playing innocent."

He knew her attempt to comfort him was sincere, so when she laid out the black tie on his desk, he swallowed the biting comment that came to mind about her mothering him like she did everyone else in her godforsaken town. Instead, without saying a word about it, he pulled off his own tie and began threading the one she offered through his collar.

Ellie was getting to know him well enough by then to understand that his silent acquiescence was as good as thanks.

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Two nights earlier, after Jack's family had been found, the press notified and the proverbial shit had begun to hit the fan, Carver and Miller closed themselves in his office to sort through the evidence in Danny's murder once again. With Jack no longer a suspect and information developing about the mysterious hiker, they needed to go back to the beginning and look at everything anew.

Ellie sat on the couch, her shoulders drooping and her eyes half shut. She had been staring at the same page of notes for close to ten minutes, no longer able to even make sense of her own writing.

"Miller." Carver's sharp voice broke through her haze, and she sighed and shoved her hair back from her face as she looked up at him, a raised eyebrow the only response she could muster.

"Go home. Get some sleep." He knew she hadn't eaten all day, too busy running around dealing with the aftermath of Jack's death, then rejecting his suggestion of takeout before sitting down to their current task. By the time they had settled in his office she was barely speaking and her exhaustion was written all over her face.

And now that he thought of it, he couldn't let her drive like that.

"Come on, I'll give you a ride." She blinked at him, looking momentarily confused. He didn't know if she was having trouble processing his words or was simply surprised at his unexpectedly thoughtful gesture.

More troubling was her lack of response. There was no witty retort about him being the chauffeur for once, no protest that she could take care of herself. Instead, Ellie silently put the papers down, trudged out to her desk to get her things, then leaned heavily against the nearest wall while she waited for Carver to pack up.

They didn't speak again until he pulled up in front of her house. She looked at him briefly, her eyes still unfocused.

"Thanks for the ride. I'm not sure I would have made it home." The admission surprised him, but he merely inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Good night," he said quietly as he watched her slowly climb out of the car and make her way inside, the events of the last 24 hours clearly weighing heavily on her shoulders. Emmett wondered how much of it was physical exhaustion, and how much the emotional toll of Jack's death and the rest of the case catching up with her. He hoped a good night's sleep would get her back into fighting shape, before turning his mind back to the evidence he'd been studying all night.

But when she walked back into the squad room the next morning, she looked as haggard as ever, the bags under her eyes and the ridges in her forehead having grown overnight. If Carver was a person who did small talk, he would have asked her how she slept, maybe even how she was feeling. Instead, he gave her an assessing glance over the rim of his glasses, then turned and walked back into his office without comment.

It was a full hour before he saw her again, no minor feat in a department as small and an investigation as intense as theirs. He had been trying to give her a wide berth, and she was no more inclined to small talk than he. When Carver heard a voice rising outside his office, it took a moment to realize it belonged to Miller.

"This message is IMPORTANT. You should have given it to me sooner," Ellie spit out. "Not 45 minutes later. RIGHT AWAY." The anger in her voice was unmistakable. But she wasn't done yet; she just kept getting louder. "What were you thinking? WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?" She was shouting now, and Carver was up from his chair, across the room, and out the door with a speed and agility he didn't know he still possessed.

The squad room had gone quiet, all staring at Ellie and the secretary she'd been berating. The younger woman - was her name Kim? Carver couldn't remember - stood frozen beside Ellie's desk, tears rolling silently down her face. Even Ellie looked shocked at her own outburst.

After another second of silence, Ellie mumbled a quick "Sorry," turned on her heel and made a beeline for the locker room, her gaze fixed firmly to the floor. She had never lost her cool like that at work before, at least not in front of so many people. She'd certainly never spoken that way to Karen. Ellie was the one who organized Christmas gifts for the support staff and threw parties on Administrative Professionals day; she despised detectives who treated the receptionists like servants.

What the hell was happening to her, she wondered desperately as she threw the door shut behind her and started pacing. When had she become this person? Danny was dead. Jack was dead. Her son was traumatized and pulling away from her. Her town was on the verge of imploding. And it was her fault. All of it. She was the damn police. She should have stopped it from happening. She should have protected Danny, or found his killer faster, or protected Jack from the lynch mob at his door, or the one writing the news, or himself. She should have at least had the control to speak to her damn secretary calmly.

It wasn't until she stopped kicking the crap out of the locker that she realized she had even started. She threw herself backwards onto the bench and raked her hands through her hair, her chest heaving and her foot throbbing. Damn it, she thought, so much for maintaining control.

"Miller." Carver's voice was quiet but still made Ellie leap to her feet in surprise. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, she thought. "Shit," she said aloud to her own surprise. Oops. "Sir," she added belatedly.

A look flitted briefly across Carver's face as he ambled over from the door where he'd been standing. Ellie realized she'd seen it before. Was that him laughing at her? God. On top of everything else, he was infuriating and she had barely begun to figure him out.

"Sit," he instructed as he did so himself. "Sir," she protested, "I really need to go apologize to Karen and get back to work." He just stared at her, and after a moment she settled back down on the bench next to him, sighing.

Ellie wasn't sure how long they sat like that, side by side, staring silently at the wall in front of them, but by the time her boss started speaking, her chest was no longer heavy and her heart had slowed almost to its normal rhythm. Shit, she thought suddenly, he was waiting for her, letting her calm down, wasn't he? Now, of all times, he decides to act like a human being? The bastard.

Caver tilted his head to look at her. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. He sighed, shook his head and looked down at his hands in his lap. I'm no damn good at this, he thought. What the hell am I supposed to say to her right now? He considered standing up and walking away. God, he wanted so badly to do that, to just run away from this incredibly awkward situation and let Miller figure it out for herself. She's a grown woman, for God's sake; she can handle it.

Except, her behavior a few minutes before had shown the opposite, he reminded himself. She was clearly having difficulty coping at the moment, and he felt responsible for bringing her down this rabbit hole. He owed it to her to...what? Fix her? Pick up the pieces? Comfort her? He doesn't do those things, he thought to himself, and even if he did, it wouldn't be appropriate to do them for a colleague, much less his subordinate. But he had to do...something. He took another deep breath and hoped that if he just said something, anything, it would be enough and they could move on from this.

"Look, Miller, this is..." he trailed off, already shaking his head at himself, at the uselessness of anything he had to say. Oh, just talk, for fuck's sake, he told himself. He stole a quick glance at her face, which was still staring blankly at the wall, then hunched over and looked down at his own hands.

"Detaching yourself from this stuff, it's not easy. It's not." Ellie let out a harsh breath, a bitter almost laugh at his obvious statement. He shook his head at himself again but soldiered on. "It's just...it's the job."

She looked at him then, sharply, and he lifted his eyes to meet hers.

"Don't tell me what the job is. I know the damn job," she spit out. It was his turn to sigh and roll his eyes before looking back at her, his mouth open to speak but his brain unable to find the right words, and his eyes wide with the effort.

"No, I mean...it's the job that does those things, asks those questions. It's the job that's responsible. Not you."

Ellie froze for a moment, holding her breath, searching his face as she tried to divine the meaning of his awkward words. Did he know what she'd been thinking? How? It wasn't until hours later that she realized it was because he had the same regrets.

Carver knew he was barely making sense, but steeled himself for one last try. "It's just the case. We investigate. We ask difficult questions. We open wounds. We do it to bring justice to a murdered child."

Ellie shook her head sadly. "Jack wasn't the case. He didn't murder a child. He was fine until WE brought him into this, and it killed him." She closed her mouth and managed not to add, "WE killed him," knowing it would sound melodramatic. It felt like those words were hanging in the air anyway.

"No, we did our job. We did it well, and we did it as carefully and with as much discretion as we could. You didn't tell the newspapers about his past. You didn't slander him. You didn't show up at his house with torches and pitchforks and you didn't throw a brick through his window. That wasn't you. That wasn't even the job. It was the damned media and the scared people they whipped into a...a frenzy." Carver stopped for a moment to breathe. He wasn't sure who was more surprised at his speech - him or Ellie. She sat in shocked silence, refusing to take her eyes off him and looking needy as hell. He wondered if he wasn't doing more damage than good. He certainly wasn't doing anything to help maintain the professional boundaries he'd tried like hell to build with her.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, he guessed. Might as well finish this.

"It wasn't you," he repeated quietly. "It was them. They…" Carver trailed off again, searching desperately for what to say. "They hounded that man to death. We just did our job."

Still she stared at him, but he was all out of words. He looked down at his hands again, thinking they looked old and feeling utterly exhausted all of a sudden. Without looking at her, he asked, "What was the message?"

It took Ellie a moment to figure out what he was asking. How did the man change gears so quickly? Oh shit, she thought: she still had to face the squad room after her earlier outburst.

"Um, it wasn't really...it was just the morgue. The coroner's official report is ready for us," she answered sheepishly. She'd blown up over nothing.

Carver nodded decisively and got to his feet. Without looking at her, he said," OK. I'll take care of that. You go tell Kim you're sorry and then head home."

Ellie blinked. "Karen."

"What?" Carver looked at her then.

"You mean Karen, not Kim."

Carver raised his eyebrows. "I could have sworn her name was Kim."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Nope, always been Karen."

"Huh. Karen," Carver said to himself, as though he still didn't quite believe it, before turning and heading for the door.

"But wait, Sir, I don't need -" Ellie started to protest.

"Miller. You haven't had a day off in three weeks. Go home, see your kids, and sleep - for real this time. Meet me back here in the morning before Jack's funeral," he ordered as he walked out of the locker room, not looking back.

Ellie sat for another moment, collecting her thoughts. Damn it, that man was confusing. But she stood up, feeling calmer now and buoyed by the thought of hugs from her boys and a date with her own bed, and headed out of the locker room to do exactly as he'd instructed.

And for the first time since Danny's death, Ellie slept soundly.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello again! This chapter takes place during Episode 7, beginning the morning after Jack's funeral. _

_I've been trying to fill in where it felt to me like the series left gaps. So far, it's all been focused on the development of the rapport/friendship between Emmett and Ellie. I know what I want to do about the end of the show, but I don't have anything particular in mind between "here" and "there." If you have any ideas - holes you'd like to see filled, or themes you want developed - let me know and I will try my best :-)_

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"Oh, Hi, Carol," Ellie said after picking up the phone. "He's not sick, is he?" Visions of vomiting children ran through her head. Please, not that right now, Ellie thought.

"No, Detective Miller, he's not here." Ellie was momentarily confused. She saw him get up, eat breakfast, grunt a goodbye at her as she ran out the door a few hours earlier. It had to be a mistake. "But Joe walked him to school this morning."

"I'm sorry, but he never got here." At those words, the ones every parent dreads, Ellie's blood ran cold. Now she was wishing for a stomach virus. Tom. Where was Tom?

Already gathering her things, she called Joe. She broke off mid-sentence as she stepped inside her boss' office without knocking.

"Tom's missing. I have to go," she told Carver starkly, not waiting for a reply. She hurried out of the station house, her mind registering nothing but the need to find her child.

Carver had heard the concern in Ellie's voice when she picked up the phone and was already out of his seat. He grabbed his coat and strode through the squad room after her, slowing slightly at Frank's desk. "Tom Miller is missing. Tell the chief and get ready to do an APB; I'll call you with details in a minute."

Ellie moved as quickly as she could without actually running, trying in vain to calm her nerves and stay in control as adrenaline rushed through her body. By the time Carver got outside she was already putting the unmarked car in reverse.

"Miller," he shouted. "MIlLER!" But she heard nothing except Joe's voice in her ear telling her their son was fine, and the voice in her head telling her he wasn't. She startled and slammed on the brakes when the other detective banged on the window, then yanked the door open and jumped in.

"I'm coming with you," he said, reaching for his seatbelt and willing his own heart, pounding from exertion, to slow down and give him a break, just this once. It actually seemed to work.

Ellie was still speaking on the phone as she pulled out of the parking space, squealing the tires just a little as she threw it into drive and hit the accelerator.

"Is that Joe?" Carver's voice was calm, but commanding. Not waiting for an answer, he continued, "Put him on speaker." Ellie swallowed hard, but did as he instructed.

"Joe, it's Detective Carver. When did you last see Tom?" Emmett's professional training took over as he quickly gathered the necessary information, then told Joe they would call back soon. Ellie said nothing, her eyes now focused totally on the road and her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Carver reached over and disconnected the call while pulling his own phone out of his pocket with his other hand.

"Miller, what's Frank's extension," he asked. She took a deep breath and forced out, "5221." Ellie heard him quietly relay the details to the other detective. White male. Twelve years old. Blue hooded sweatshirt. Last seen...Oh God. In that instant Ellie knew with clarity what Beth had meant when she said she felt so far away from herself. She could see the terrified mother she was with the calm, detached eye of an investigator. The cold, clinical description sounded like so many others she'd heard before, but this time, it was Tom. Her Tom.

Ellie let out a harsh breath then, surprising even herself with the sort of moaning sound that accompanied it. Carver looked at her sharply as he finished his conversation with Frank. Stopped at a red light, she glanced over to meet his eyes and winced at the concern she found there. She closed her own eyes briefly and breathed deeply, trying once again to calm her nerves, before focusing back on the road before her.

"Want to use the lights?" Carver asked the question as mildly as he could manage. Ellie was conflicted. She wanted to get to the school as quickly as possible, but somehow it felt like turning on the lights and sirens would make the emergency too real. She looked at him again, tears suddenly welling up in her eyes, and said nothing.

"Want to pull over? Let me drive?" Carver's voice was downright gentle now. Oh my God, Ellie thought, he's speaking to me like a victim. If Carver was not only acting human, but KIND, then this was definitely every bit as bad as she feared. He was asking her what she wanted, for God's sake. She wished he would bark out an order or four. Then everything would be OK, right? She mentally rolled her eyes at her desperate magical thinking. Damn it Ellie, get it together, she thought.

Ellie glanced up in time to see the light change and eased into the intersection carefully. Blinking away the tears, she took another deep breath and resolved not to get ahead of herself. They didn't know this was related to Danny. They didn't know much of anything at this point. Until they did, she needed to stay calm and think clearly. She was an experience police officer, a detective, for goodness sake. Ask the questions, follow the evidence, do the legwork, find Tom. If ever there was a time to calm down and be professional, this was it, right?

Her voice shaking only slightly, she told her boss, "I'm fine. Let's just do the job. Talk me through this, please. What's the procedure for a missing child?"

Carver studied her carefully before responding. She knows the procedure, he thought. What did she need - reminding or reassuring? He supposed they were one and the same at that moment.

Visions of his own daughter and another young girl, taken from her parents, flashed through his mind. He could imagine all too well the hell Ellie was experiencing right now. Professional distance from his colleagues be damned; he'd do whatever he could to get her through this and to find her boy. If procedure was what she needed right now, procedure she would get.

"Dispatch the nearest officer to secure the scene. Frank's already got a uniform headed to the block where Joe left Tom," Carver rattled off. "Notify a supervisor. That's me." Carver paused almost imperceptibly.

"Preliminary interview of the family and the last known contact. That's Joe. And you." Carver stopped and watched for a reaction, but all Ellie did was draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Is there any reason you can think of that Tom would want to skip school? Anything he was upset about? Something he wanted to do, a place he might want to go?"

Ellie thought for a minute. "No," she finally said, "Nothing. So next step is to interview other witnesses. We'll talk to Tom's teacher, his friends, see what they know."

"Sounds good," Carver said before continuing carefully, "A crime scene team will head over to look for any physical evidence between the point where Joe left him and the school. Frank will start canvassing for witnesses. Next step is to determine whether this is more likely a runaway or an abduction." Ellie's face went a little pale, but she kept her eyes on the road and nodded.

We need a CSI at the house, too, Carver thought to himself. This is Miller, sure, but don't let that blind you. Child disappears, look at the family first, and we need to see the kid's computer. He pulled his phone back out of his pocket and started to dial, then thought better of it. He wrote Frank a quick email, knowing he'd receive it on his own mobile device. As Carver hit the button to send his message, Ellie spoke again.

"You need to send a crime scene team to my house. Tom's laptop would have been in his backpack. I'll give you his cell number to pull the records. You ready?"

Carver looked up at her in surprise, but her face was unreadable. Her professional mask was firmly in place now. Good for you, Miller, he thought as he took down the number and sent another message to Frank.

They pulled into the school parking lot and stopped in front of the main entrance, not bothering to look for an empty space. As Ellie pulled the keys out of the ignition, Carver put his hand on her right arm and waited for her to meet his eyes. When she did, he could see the terror there, standing out on her otherwise inscrutable face. He steeled himself for a fight; she wasn't going to like what he had to say.

"Listen. Procedure says, you can't be on this case. You know that."

Ellie shook her head forcefully. She did her best to control her voice, but it still sounded slightly frantic even to her own ears.

"No. No, sir. No. This is my son. I am the very best person to investigate this case. No one else wants to find him more than I do."

"And that is exactly why you can't be involved. Stay in the car," Carver said firmly, but her desperation had already begun to wear him down. He knew full well that if their roles were reversed, he would react the same way.

"Please, sir. Please. I'm not going to just sit here. I can't. I'll work this with you, or I'll work it on my own, but I'm not going to sit back and wring my hands and be a...a victim. I'm not." There was a part of her that wanted to - a part that just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry for her little boy. But the drive to the school had given her the time she needed to tamp down on that urge and get her thoughts back in order. She was ready to work. She had to be.

"Miller, we don't know yet if there even is a victim," Carver said, both for clarity and what little reassurance he could give her. "We have to work this like any other disappearance, without prejudice or emotion."

"I can do that, sir, I promise. I really can." She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She'd given up on pretending to be calm - the adrenaline still flowing through her veins didn't allow it - but she could do her best to look competent.

Carver sighed. He knew what the right decision was. He also knew he was about to make the wrong one. But she seemed to have her act together, and he didn't have time to keep arguing. Besides, better to have her on the team where he can keep an eye on her, right?

"Okay. Let's go," he said, giving her arm the slightest squeeze before letting go and climbing out of the car. Letting her into the investigation was the closest thing to comfort for Ellie at the moment, and Carver wasn't going to deny her that.


	4. Chapter 4

_This is set during the scene in the principal's office. Very short and quick. _

"He didn't mention anything," Ellie said, her eyes pleading with him to believe her. She'd said the same thing in the car just ten minutes before, he remembered. He refrained again from speaking his thoughts in response: that her denial meant almost nothing. Twelve year old boys were not known for their emotional honesty, and usually kept a multitude of secrets - some more malignant than others - that they didn't tell their mothers. Ellie was a good parent who loved her child and had nothing but the best intentions, but he knew from experience what she did not: there were many things about her son she didn't know. Unfortunately, she was most likely facing a very rude and scary awakening in the next few hours.

A rush of pity or concern or some other unfamiliar emotion washed over him then, and Emmett found himself unintentionally gentling his voice again as he spoke to her.

"It's your call. You want to talk to the kids or find the teacher?"

Carver's tone didn't escape Ellie's notice. She searched his face a moment, dreading what she'd find there. He was being kind again, giving her choices, letting her take the lead. Was it possible he was just trying to be nice to her, given the situation?

She wanted desperately to believe that was the case, but knew better. Her boss was obviously anticipating a bad outcome, trying to prepare her for...something. Somewhere in the dark corners of her mind she knew the myriad possibilities, but if she indulged those thoughts, allowed herself to wallow in them even for a moment, she knew they would bring her to her emotional knees, and probably her physical ones, too.

Ellie swallowed back the panic once more and made a choice. There was no way she could speak calmly to Tom's friends; shaking information out of them felt like too reasonable an option right now. She felt desperate to DO something, to take action. Pounding the pavement for signs of Mr. Conroy and his wife would have to suffice.

"Teacher," she breathed out. Extra words suddenly felt like a waste of precious time and energy. Ellie wondered for just a moment if this was how her boss felt all the time; if his terseness was borne not of poor manners or condescension but rather this unrelenting desperation that suddenly felt like a huge weight on her chest, so heavy she could barely breathe. But she didn't have time for speculation now. She had to find her son.

Carver looked her in the eye and nodded once. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her it would be okay. He wished he could promise that they'd find her boy and her world would return to the way it was before he came into her life. But he couldn't. No matter how this ended - and it might not end well - he knew that everything had changed, and there was no going back.

"Call me if you need me," was all he could say as he watched her go. Ellie looked back sharply. It was the most frightening thing he'd said to her yet.


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